Post Nuptials
by mascaret
Summary: Andy regrets bringing Sharon with him to his daughter's wedding.


_Post Nuptials_

Andy put the key into the ignition, but instead of turning the car on he leaned back in his seat with a sigh. "I think I should put in for a transfer."

Sharon sounded genuinely surprised. "Why?"

Answering, Andy couldn't bring himself to look at her. "Because this was a mistake. I never should have brought you here and I _really_ wish you hadn't seen _that._ I don't know that I can come into work everyday knowing what you've seen tonight."

"Andy..." Sharon put her hand over his and gave a quick, sympathetic squeeze. " _That_ was amateur hour compared to some of the family dramas I've been involved in over the years."

"I know you are trying to be nice -"

 _"-Amateur hour._ " she repeated.

"Sharon, how can you say that? The _nicest_ part of the evening was when I picked up your wine glass to keep the non-English speaking waiter from clearing it away while you were in the bathroom and my former mother-in-law appeared out of nowhere to accuse me of being off the wagon again. And of course she had to call my ex and Nicole over. The look on Nicole's face while her mom kept going on about how she knew they should have just had a dry wedding ...

Sharon countered. "When I came back it seemed to me that Nicole had accepted your explanation that the drink was mine."

Andy shook his head - not in disagreement, but in disgust at himself and the whole situation.

Sharon tried to lighten the mood. "Of course next time you are in a situation like that, you might want to let the waiter take it and just pay the $8 to buy me another glass."

"It was $12 a glass."

"Oh well in that case..."

She was trying to calm him, reassure him but he wasn't having any of it.

"Sharon, they had my picture at the bar – with a warning not to serve me." Finally turning to face her, Andy asked. "How do you top that?"

"Andy, it was under the bar where only the bar staff would see it. You only saw it because you went behind the bar at the end of the night to get a pen to write the caterer's check."

"They had my picture posted like a common criminal!"

Sharon admitted. "I did the same thing for Jack at my son Ricky's college graduation party.  
It was at my condo but I had hired a caterer so I could actually spend time with the guests. I gave the bartender Jack's photo. Not that it made a difference because Jack arrived at the party already three sheets to the wind. Before he could make any kind of a scene I ended up luring him downstairs – through very questionable means – and locking him in my storage unit for the evening."

"That's not even close to the same thing." Andy protested. "Sharon, I have been sober for close to twenty years."

"Some wounds take a very long time to heal."

After a few moments of his dejected silence, Sharon tried another. "Let's see ... there is my husband's slightly younger, extremely more successful brother who every time we had a family gathering greeted me by asking _in front of Jack_ when was I going to leave my no good louse of a husband and run off with him. Oh and he always greets me by trying to kiss me ... on the mouth."

"That's a bit creepy." Flynn admitted. "But I'm not feeling like amateur hour yet."

"You want to compare mother-in-laws?" Sharon asked. "Okay. How about the time Jack – who has never been great at math or biology – picked the day of my baby shower to drop in at the house after a seven and a half month disappearing act."

Andy still wasn't quite feeling it, but he was listening.

"He waltzed in while I was in the other room on a work call. He saw saw all the baby shower decorations, his mother and his unwed sister sitting on the couch with all the presents piled up in front of them.

"Jack never had the best of relationships with either of his siblings so naturally he immediately started in on his sister. Mentions not seeing a ring on her finger. Asks her who the father is. When she just stared at him and didn't answer he kept pressing her on it. Ignoring the growing awkwardness of the other guests, Jack finally straight out asked her – 'You do know who the father is, don't you?'"

Flynn winced.

"To which his sister replied, 'Well I thought I did' before calling me into the room.

"Jack took one look at me and excused himself to go stare at the calendar – which had my due date circled - hanging in the kitchen. He was still in the kitchen staring at the calendar trying to count backwards when my old partner from Internal Affairs showed up to drop off the cake.

"Having managed to count back nine months but having failed to take into account that a pregnancy is actually forty weeks ... Jack took a swing at him."

Andy groaned.

"So in front of all of my friends and coworkers my mother-in-law - the person who had _insisted_ on throwing me a baby shower over my strenuous objections – started calling me all sorts of names . _Jezebel_ was by far the nicest."

"What did you do?" Flynn asked.

Sharon shrugged. "Sometimes you get to the point where there is nothing left to do but laugh at the absurdity of it all so that's what I did."

Andy watched her raise one hand to rub at her temple – as if she could still feel the headache all these years later.

"I hadn't even wanted a shower, but my mother-in-law refused to listen when I insisted you don't have a baby shower for a third child. Let's not even mention the faux pas of her hosting it and at my house no less."

"I've only ever heard you mention -" Andy stopped as he caught on.

He started to say something else – some expression of condolence – but stopped himself. That hadn't been the point of her telling the story.

Instead, he squeezed her hand.

There passed between them a few minutes of companionable silence before Andy asked the question that he had been wondering all day.

"Why are you doing this? I mean don't get me wrong – I'm grateful – but why do this? Why volunteer to go with me to my daughter's wedding?"

"You're a good man, Andy. You've made mistakes with your life, with your children, but you are willing to admit to them. You are trying to make amends. I admire that." Somberly, she admitted. "I'm envious of that. I wish my children's father could do that."

A few more minutes of that comfortable silence passed between them before Andy started the car.

"See you on Monday?"

"Yeah." With a smile, Andy nodded.

 _Finis_


End file.
